somerville dog: a weblog

Paris is notorious for many reasons, not least of which is the importance of watching where you walk. The problem, of course, is that, when you are in Paris, the last thing that you are likely to be watching is where you are walking.

Dogs are ubiquitous in the city of light. The first thing I saw when I left the baggage-claim area with Strummer's other human companion and entered the Charles de Gaulle-Roissy concourse was a woman with a golden retriever. At a brasserie serving steak frites in the VI^e, the people at the table behind us had a toy breed under the table.

At another restaurant, the English-speaking people at the table next to us ordered the prix fixe dinner and then requested their dessert "to go." There was great confusion and the waiter ultimately explained that they could not let the customers take the food with them because the restaurant did not have an export licence. I think that, more than a "language barrier," the misunderstanding was cultural: when you can bring your dog with you to the restaurant, you can't very well ask for a "doggie bag."

Dogs may be welcome in the airport and in restaurants in Paris; but every park I visited during my brief stay in Paris in December (four museums in three days!) was posted "No Dogs Allowed" (in French). Dogs are not allowed in parks, except in Buttes-Chaumont (XIX^e), in parts of the Luxembourg Garden (VI^e) and the Tuileries (I^er), where they must be on leash, and in the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes.

The parks in Copenhagen, on the other hand, impressed me as very dog-friendly. When I entered Orsteds Park, a man with a dog was helping himself to a "mutt mitt" from a dispenser at the park entrance. I watched as he and his dog met another human-canine couple: while the dogs play-bowed and wagged their tails in anticipation, the humans had a brief conversation (in Danish) and then let their dogs off-leash to chase each other merrily.